Bale soars as Canaries are beaten

Gareth Bale struck twice as we secured a huge 2-0 win at Norwich City on Tuesday.

Gareth Bale struck twice as we secured a huge 2-0 win at Norwich City on Tuesday.

With teams around us dropping points - Liverpool, Arsenal, Chelsea and City all drew - victory at Carrow Road felt all the more important.

And the lads delivered the 12th win in our last 15 matches in the Premier League in some style, the sheer weight of pressure eventually telling on the hosts in the second half.

Bale, roaming around left and right, had a field day.

He could have scored a few goals in the first half before breaking the deadlock 10 minutes into the second half and then adding a sublime second to put us beyond reach midway through the half.

Harry Redknapp made one change to the team that drew against Chelsea on Thursday night.

Younes Kaboul was fit after a hamstring injury ruled him out against the Blues and he took over from Ledley King in central defence.

Steve Morison hit an early dipper straight at Brad Friedel and the teams traded a couple of early shots, Bale curled straght at John Ruddy, Kyle Walker blasted wide and Bale's 20-yarder deflected just wide.

We started to dominate around the half-hour mark.

Always patient in our passing, chances started to appear more regularly. Bale won possession from Russell Martin, but sliced wide from the angle then van der Vaart split the home defence and found Emmanuel Adebayor, the striker poked past the advancing Ruddy but the ball ran out.

Bale was then denied by Ruddy after a slide-rule pass by Luka Modric and it remained goalless at the break as van der Vaart and Adebayor fired efforts off target.

Bale was wide of the mark again four minutes into the second half and you just sensed a goal was coming, but not before Andew Surman curled a free-kick just wide, the closest the home side came.

The breakthrough arrived on 55 minutes. Parker, van der Vaart and Adebayor were all involved but with yellow shirts all around them, Adebayor and Bale somehow opened it up for Bale to drill home low from 12 yards.

The second goal was all about Bale's pace and vision. Modric rolled the ball into his path over the halfway line and the West flyer sprinted clear, ran past Zak Whitbread and then clipped the ball over the advancing Ruddy. It was sheer brilliance.

That appeared to knock the stuffing out of the home side, who still ran for everything, but couldn't trouble Kaboul and William Gallas over any sustained period.

We continued to pop the ball around and carve out chances. Adebayor lashed high and wide, Bale and Adebayor opened it up for Modric to shoot straight at Ruddy and Walker, Bale and Rose continued to tear down the lines, without opening up for a third goal.